Prehab that people actually do

The design problem

A generic prehab block rotates a pool of exercises by session number. That produces shoulder cuff work at the front of a squat day and Copenhagen planks before a bench press. Technically "covered". Nobody does it — and an exercise people skip protects nothing.

Prehab has to belong to the day it is on. In Train Smart, each movement is classified by the region it protects, and the block is matched to the region of the session it sits in. Lower-body day gets hamstrings, adductors and calves. Upper day gets neck, cuff and thoracic spine. It stops feeling like homework because it is obviously related to what you are about to do.

What actually has evidence behind it

Three interventions carry genuinely strong trial evidence, and all three are in the programs here:

• Nordic hamstring curls — cluster-randomised trial evidence for reducing hamstring strain in men's soccer (Petersen 2011). More here.
• The Copenhagen adductor programme — cluster-randomised trial evidence for reducing groin problems in male footballers (Harøy 2019). This is why it is in every football-code program.
• A structured warm-up — the FIFA 11+ lineage, with cluster-randomised trial evidence in young female footballers (Soligard 2008). The warm-up is not a formality; it is the intervention.

Every one of these is cited in full on our sources page, with the specific claim each supports.

What each sport actually needs

Prehab is not one list. The sport determines the tissue at risk:

• AFL and soccer — hamstring and groin first, then the calf and ankle chain for repeat sprints.
• League and union — the neck before anything else, loaded eccentrically as well as isometrically. Resisting your head being moved for you is what happens in a tackle.
• Basketball and netball — the patellar tendon, then the ankle and calf chain that has to survive three hundred landings.
• Cricket — lumbar spine laterally, lead hip, and bowling-shoulder internal rotation. Loaded side planks, not a mobility flow.
• Hockey — spinal flexion under load and hip rotation, because it is a sport played bent over.

How much is enough

Ten minutes, twice a week, done consistently, beats thirty minutes done in March and never again. The volume required is genuinely small; the consistency required is not.